


some change in the routine

by crowkag



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: College Student Peter Parker, Derealization, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Insomnia, Mental Health Issues, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Peter Parker, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, WHY did tony not just call peter, and also that it's something tony would probably do fr, and it is mostly chaotic good twitter posts, and the answer....is that i thought this concept was rly funny, i have a pinterest board for tony vibes, i live for dumbass tony stark, now you may wonder...., yall need to understand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24614011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkag/pseuds/crowkag
Summary: The mesh was shoved upwards—Peter heard a labored, wheezy chuckle of triumph—and knuckles were rapped against his window in a shaky yet determined beat.Though his brain was still catching up with the rest of him, it managed to register the knock for what it was: the Klondike Bar jingle. A small detail of domestic normalcy and developed inside jokes, and also what had him finally dart the rest of the short distance to his window.Peering down, he ran a risk of short-circuiting when he actually saw Tony blinking back up at him, fingers curled in a death grip on the brick windowsill.And then he did short-circuit when the man sighed in relief while dangling at least twenty-five feet above the ground.“Oh, grazie al cielo,” Tony breathed, voice muffled through the glass. “Imagine getting the wrong room, huh?”(or: Peter is having a bad night in his dorm room. Tony, who wouldn't understand restraint if it bit him in the arm, decides to help by being himself.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 24
Kudos: 219
Collections: IronDad (and his Spiderson)





	some change in the routine

**Author's Note:**

> The summary makes this sound kind of goofy, which it is! But it's also a friendly reminder to myself.
> 
> Warning for derealization (or more like my efforts to write coherently on what it feels like. It's all based upon personal experience so there's my credibility license lol) This is also rated for language. 
> 
> HUGE thank you to users Pearl09 and mixermiz907 for being extra pairs of eyes, and for reassuring me that this reads coherently. Love you guys <33
> 
> Please enjoy!

Peter was of a mind that dorm rooms were the worst places to be alone.

He could remember feeling the exact opposite, three months past high school on that first move-in day. The world had seemed bigger than ever before, crossed with the footprints of previous generations but spinning on and on in preparation for _him_.

There had been misty eyes and so much pride, May and Tony murmuring against his hairline about how he was made for big things, for the best things.

“We love you. We’ll miss you. Call us,” they’d both repeated, over and over, the sunset lining their shoulders while climbing back into the rented U-Haul.

Peter had waved goodbye with a trembling hand, chest constricted and a lump stuck in his throat, but he’d still been excited. Still overjoyed, still a tad dumbfounded with courage, still ready.

Now, though, at the tail end of his junior year and in the loneliness of his dorm, he just felt like a moron. It was becoming an increasingly common sentiment.

He’d hung up with Tony four hours ago, and May almost six. Sometime as a freshman, nightly phone calls had become twice-weekly, then split once more into every other week. Last fall had been an overhaul, with May asking him to try calling every Friday, and an add-on from Tony that “any extra calls earn you bonus points.”

It was the first thing he’d ever set an alarm for, outside wake-up alerts.

_7:30 PM, EVERY FRIDAY: MAY AND TONY MISS YOU, DUDE!!!_

And okay, maybe reminders to eat or sleep were just as important—he forgot sometimes that his body needed nourishment—but he’d be damned if he let himself get distant again, cut off and isolated.

Those phone calls were usually the only thing he looked forward to, anyways. Become a walking stress bomb Monday through Sunday, every week, except for those precious few hours on Friday. That was the routine.

Tonight was different, though. For some reason.

His lights were off, blinds pulled up to let parking lot street lamps flood along his bare walls. It was a mesmerizing color, faint white over grey, with a hint of gold, and you’d think some secret to the universe was caught up in there, because Peter’s eyes had been following the subtle shifts in hue for… for a really, really long time.

Well, just since hanging up with Tony, but… a _long_ time.

And he couldn’t afford to look away.

If he _did_ , he’d have to address the morphing walls, which was something he really didn’t want to do right now.

On top of two papers, a lab report he hadn’t started, six assignments for three separate classes, and a smattering of things he was probably forgetting about as a coping mechanism, dealing with his stupid brain after a good year of spatial normalcy was __not__ written down in his planner.

Watching colors proved more fun. You either choose to sit in the fucking shade, or clamber to your feet and find a patch of sunlight, which was an entirely easy decision. He was _dealing with it_.

Just follow the routine. Stare, breathe, remind himself.

Stare at anything but the bed or ceiling or walls, because one is shrinking, the other two are growing, and all are breaking the laws of physics.

Breathe because he’d die otherwise, and even if he sometimes found that a preferable alternative, plenty of others wouldn’t.

Remind himself of the date, of the time, of the place. Orient himself in the now. Let it be his anchor when he felt like this.

All formless and misplaced and stretchy.

_It’s Saturday_ , Peter thought, watching the colors seep too far into the upward curvature of the walls.

_It’s… 2:16 in the morning on a Saturday _.__

_In my dorm room, it is 2:16 in the morning on a Saturday _.__

_On campus, in my dorm room, it is 2:16 in the morning on a Saturday._

_Except…_

Except Fridays were phone call days.

Phone call days meant Tony and May.

Tony and May, their voices through the phone, because _Fridays were phone call days_ , and he could still hear their laughs and I love you’s and goodbyes in his brain, so… so it _couldn’t_ … it _couldn’t, it—_

“It is Saturday,” Peter said, voice chipped on the end and a little too loud for the hour. “It is 2:16 in the morning, on a Saturday. I am in my dorm room.”

Frantic fingers fumbled his phone up from his chest, clicked the screen on and revealed the clock.

“It is 2:17 in the morning on a Saturday.”

“I’m on campus, in my dorm room, and it’s 2:18 in the morning on a Saturday.”

“It’s 2:19 on a Saturday.”

“2:20.”

“2:26 on a _ _—__ ”

“It’s 2:32 _ _—__ ”

“My name is Peter Benjamin Parker. I am on my college campus, in my dorm room. It is 2:40 in the morning. Yesterday was Friday. Today is Saturday. Tomorrow is Sunday. I’m… I am Peter Benjamin Parker. On campus, in my dorm, and it’s _ _—__ ”

He wanted to be home.

On nights like these—on nights that could barely hold a candle to ones like these—he wanted to _go home_. More than anything.

For years, this had been his loneliness. It had a name, specialists, dedicated forum threads to scroll through in the dead of night, but it was unique to _Peter_. He believed himself the definition of alien, with brain matter carved by hands from a different plane of existence.

He’d always have this with him. Like a sticky wad of chewed gum, caught in the seams of a favored pair of jeans, but—

But back _home_ , loneliness didn’t matter, and he could just… he could sit with someone. With people so well-versed in physical solidity that he’d be pulled back into himself. Elbows would line up with waist, fingertips tapping mid-thigh, skin on the outside and breath inside, not the wrong way around.

Contact would be all it took.

Except he _wasn’t_ home. No sitting with someone. Just him, the walls, a million and one coping mechanisms that never worked in the ways he needed, and loneliness.

Through and through, loneliness.

Maybe he was right where he belonged, anyways. The dorm could stretch forever, on and on until it became a hole, until it became a door, and Peter could just slip through and—

A loud yelp cut straight through his downward spiral, making him shoot up in bed.

For one wild second, he fixed an affronted look at the wall. By this point, spatial distortions were childhood friends he’d long since outgrown but couldn’t shake. Tricks with his hearing? That was foreign territory.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t possible, though.

Shit, maybe tonight would add one more problem to the pile. Just another addition to his personal cornucopia of mental health issues.

But the room was silent, and a new sound—like metal crumpling up in a trash compactor—had him twisting to face the window…

The one that sat two whole stories above the ground.

Heart lodging into his throat, Peter tossed aside his blankets and eased onto the creaky floorboards. Nails running along his comforter, he never took his eyes from the window as he walked haltingly down the length of his bed.

So he saw clearly—and felt the resulting shock jolt through his skin—when a hand swung out in front of the glass. It was a mechanical bounce of red against Peter’s vision, glinting in the light before falling out of sight. Another followed, except this one was flesh and struggling to push open the window’s outward mesh screen.

Peter’s head started spinning out of control. Not in the way it might if danger were lurking outside, but it still wasn’t preferable. While unplanned mental breakdowns weren’t fun, at least he had a high chance of knowing what they entailed.

This, however, was an entirely unanticipated twist. A real change in routine.

The mesh was shoved upwards—Peter heard a labored, wheezy chuckle of triumph—and knuckles were rapped against his window in a shaky yet determined beat.

Though his brain was still catching up with the rest of him, it managed to register the knock for what it was: the Klondike Bar jingle. A small detail of domestic normalcy and developed inside jokes, and also what had him finally dart the rest of the short distance to his window.

Peering down, he ran a risk of short-circuiting when he _actually_ saw Tony blinking back up at him, fingers curled in a death grip on the brick windowsill.

And then he __did__ short-circuit when the man _sighed in relief_ while dangling at least twenty-five feet above the ground.

“Oh, _grazie al cielo_ ,” Tony breathed, voice muffled through the glass. “Imagine getting the wrong room, huh?”

Peter opened his mouth, closed it.

Raised a hand to his face, lowered it.

Decided it would be easier to demand answers _after_ he got his insane adoptive parent onto some solid ground, moved to slide the window open…

And wanted to pass out when it wouldn’t budge more than a few inches.

“Fuck” he gasped, tugging twice more.

“Language,” Tony chided, and Peter could literally—he felt like he wanted to cry and laugh all at once. Why was one of the smartest men in the world a _literal dumbass_? Who had Peter pissed off in some previous life to deserve this?

On the other side of the stupid window that _still wouldn’t open_ , Tony was clearly exhausted but taking it all in stride. Despite how his mouth hung open to gulp more air, he managed some modicum of self-control in pulling himself up enough so he could speak clearly through the glass.

“Pete, buddy. The little stoppers on the sides, you gotta take those off.”

One hand came up from the windowsill to point, and while it didn’t lessen Peter’s chances of having a heart attack tonight, it _did_ provide that last little shock he needed to forget himself and open the window.

Or… shoot the window upwards.

Quite literally.

There was a splintering noise as it happened, like an audible representation of how Peter’s brain felt right about now, and then a resounding smack from the window crashing into the ceiling. The only thing saving it from falling right back down, or tilting backwards onto the floor, was the fact that it immediately slumped sideways in the frame, jamming into a tight diagonal.

Peter stood there, arms still crooked at their elbows. Little chips of plastic—leftover remnants of the stoppers—hit his bare feet one-by-one.

Ironically enough, the only thing stopping him from having a total breakdown was the man causing his brain cells to explode in the first place. Tony was already moving to clamber through the now-open space, scrabbling against the outside wall.

“Alrighty, that works too,” he said, hooking an arm over the ledge. “Super strength, brawn over brains. It’s all fine, all gets the job done.”

Peter’s lungs were still reviewing how to breathe properly, but he made a grab at the back of Tony’s sweatshirt in an attempt to help.

It was a pretty lousy one, admittedly, and Tony tumbled head-first into the cramped dorm room, landing on his back with a grunt.

“Shit, sorry. I’m sorry,” Peter choked out, but Tony just waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it. This is far from the least flattering situation I’ve been in, trust Rhodey.”

With no small amount of cracking joints, he rolled into a sitting position and used the nearby desk as leverage in standing up.

On Peter’s stock-still part, all he could think to do was continue gawking by the wall. But there was something about seeing Tony in the middle of his room, twisting his midsection to work out any lingering aches—acting for all the world as if he hadn’t just _broken into his kid’s dorm_ —that made the numbing shock seep away and become replaced with—

“Think I should start accepting Pepper’s invitations to jog again, bud?” Tony asked conversationally, stretching a shoulder.

Peter blinked, coming back into the moment all at once and knew, with a burning chest and disbelieving breath, that this stunt was amounting to sheer irritation.

“What—what the _hell_ , Tony?” he exclaimed, eyebrows furrowing as he spun to give the damage a once-over. The glass had broken in two spots, fine spider-web fractures lancing in all directions, and right above _that_ mess were two parallel cracks in his wall, running right up to the ceiling.

With an exhausted noise coming up his throat, something between a groan and a whine, Peter picked at a jagged shard of plastic jutting out from the left frame.

“Okay, I’ll pay for all of that,” Tony said from behind him, voice taking on an airy quality. There was the sound of him scratching his facial hair with an idle thumbnail, a tic reserved for when there was guilt to be felt in the moment but addressed later.

“It’ll be good as new,” he continued on. “Oh, and I shut down the one camera that has a decent angle of your dorm, which is just—horrible security, by the way. I won’t be able to sleep properly until that’s fixed. But nobody needs to know about the pipe, we are golden.”

Peter’s face screwed up in confusion,

“Uh—the pipe?” He planted both hands on the windowsill and poked his head outside. “What’re you—oh my god.”

For the two semesters spent in this dorm room, he couldn’t remember ever being cognizant of a gutter drain next to his window. But it was there and it was _busted_ , into different angles and directions that all probably led to a personal, Peter-sized slice of hell. Just… dents upon scratches, and the very bottom crumpled into an L-shape.

That explained the earlier sounds of crunching metal, then.

Peter made a little choking noise, lips thinning into a line. He looked out at the expanse of the parking lot, begging someone, anyone who wasn’t his clearly deranged father-figure, to magically phase into existence and stare at this sight with him.

Nobody did, of course, leaving Peter to scoff disbelievingly into the empty air. He looked back at Tony, saw him typing on his phone with a set look to his face, and scoffed again.

Probably feeling the weighty gaze—or maybe the weight of his sins, who _knew_ —Tony’s gaze flicked up. He sniffed, scratched his face again while using his phone to make wide gestures.

Tics upon tics.

“It won’t be a problem, bud. We’re golden,” he repeated.

Peter laughed, short and hysterical, with widening eyes.

“Golden? It’s… it’s right outside _my_ window, I _ _—__ ”

He rounded back to sit heavily on his bed, running exhausted fingers through his hair.

“I’ve… I’ve got a door, Tony. A perfectly serviceable _door_.”

An eyebrow was raised at him, eventually paired with a little smirk. Tony looked over his shoulder, across the small dorm space where Peter’s door sat, and nodded with a look of mock surprise.

“Huh, so you do. Noted.”

When he turned back around he was smiling full-out, ear to ear.

Peter narrowed his eyes.

“Nope. No, you don’t get to do that right now.”

“Do what?”

“Try to distract me with your awful comedic skills.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The smile grew into a grin. “My comedic skills are top-notch.”

With a heaving groan, Peter flopped back onto his mattress to glare upwards. The frustrated burn in his chest was stuck in some odd limbo, purposeful but directionless, and it neither grew nor dissipated.

“You are literally… the _weirdest_ person I have ever met,” he grumbled, listening to Tony’s footsteps approach the window. “Not eccentric, or whatever, but off your rocker _weird_ , Tony.”

Jolting creaks and labored puffs of breath signalled an attempted straightening and closing of the window.

“No argument, but—” there was a snap, a slide, a forceful thump, and then the absence of an outside draft “—it’s all in a charming sort of way, right?”

Wondering if he’d receive a noise complaint on top of a fat fine from residential services, Peter frowned.

“No, like in an _annoying_ way.”

“Hm. Well I guess I’m just taking inspiration from the master, squirt.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Peter rolled his eyes before covering them in the crook of an elbow.

“Why are you even here?” he asked, not caring that his voice angled into a whine.

There was a beat of silence, punctuated by the distant pop of a car engine working overtime, then more footsteps and a little huff of effort as Tony hoisted himself onto the mattress. Springs creaked under the added weight, coiling tight on Peter’s left side and pushing upwards uncomfortably against his right. He heard Tony’s shoes fall to the ground in a light clatter.

“Well—” Peter didn’t shift as the man laid back, their shoulders bumping, “—you sounded off on the phone. And not in the typical ‘I have four assignments due two years ago and I’m procrastinating on all of them’ sort of way.”

A flash of fondness lit up in Peter’s chest at that, something to briefly counteract the discontented pressure, before it faded.

Everything considered, he never liked getting angry. Tony had come around at three in the morning to check up on him (and had recognized from voice alone that he was anything but okay), and that certainly counted for something.

But caught up in there was the lingering issue.

It was _three_ in the _morning_ , and Peter’s poor window, his wall, that stupid pipe—which he now felt some weird, personal ownership for—were crippled, fractured, in need of immediate medical assistance.

“Okay, while that’s nice and all, you couldn’t have at least _texted _me__? To let me know you were coming? Ya know, like any _normal_ person would do?”

“Hey, I thought we just established that I’m weird.”

“ _And_ annoying.”

Tony chuckled.

“Yes, that too. But enough about me. What’s been going on, bud?”

Peter continued to sulk, glaring hard into the backs of his eyelids but inwardly resigned to his fate. He knew Tony, and that there were two things the man _never_ put up with.

First, something being wrong with someone he cared about.

Second, someone he cared about using a decidedly lesser issue to avoid discussing what was _actually_ bothering them.

(And since Peter liked to think he knew himself, too, he recognized that property damage was like a single cherry atop a multilayered cake.)

“Aw, kid,” Tony said. “C’mon. I’m sorry about your window.”

He nudged Peter’s shoulder with his own.

“And the pipe. I’ll get it all fixed, I promise.”

Peter stayed silent, and got a light prod to his ribcage.

“If anyone catches on, I’ll just offer another guest lecture. Works like a charm on the academic types.”

Another poke—

“You’re breaking my poor old heart, Pete.”

—and a nudge into the flesh of his cheek, before Peter relented with a halfhearted grumble and sat up on his elbows.

“ _Tony_.”

“There he is!”

Peter squinted down at the man, who was now clearly working overtime to smother another grin.

“Seriously, you are fifty-eight going on, like—two months. Two _seconds_.” He flopped back down with a grunt. “Out of all the billionaire superheroes I could’ve met, why’d it have to be the one who actually _cares_ about people?”

Tony scoffed in artificial indignation.

“Um, I resent that accusation. Didn’t you know that caring about people drops stocks? I have a heartless market to maintain, Parker.”

And another finger was stuck into his side, twice in quick succession, except the huff elicited this time around was more amused than annoyed.

Peter bent his leg enough so he could knock the side of his foot on Tony’s knee.

“Oh my god, stop. You broke my window. That gives me a right to be grumpy.”

Tony pushed his foot away with a shake.

“Uh, nope. Buzzer going off. You catapulted that poor thing up to heaven, I got a front windowsill seat.”

“Yeah, but only after you scared the shit outta me by climbing the side of my dorm,” Peter returned, bumping his elbow into Tony’s upper arm. “Remember that? From like ten minutes ago?”

“Oh, is the wall scaling thing a Spider-Man exclusive, now?” He lightly shoved Peter’s arm back. “Got copyright on it, kid?”

“It’s kinda my shtick, Tony.”

“Mm, right… Because you’re shticky.”

Peter’s responding groan tilted into a short chuckle at the end.

“Wow, okay. Top-notch comedic skills, huh?”

“Yep, that’s one of _my_ shticks. And another one—” Tony’s hand came up to make a soft brush through Peter’s curls “—is making sure you’re okay.”

The atmosphere sobered considerably and immediately, playful smiles softening into something smaller, sadder, and—in Peter’s case especially—very tired.

Still, he thumped Tony’s leg again.

“Oh, who’s immature now, huh?” the man mused, but he sat up with a gentle sigh and shifted backwards until his head rested on the wall, shins dangling over the edge of Peter’s navy blue comforter.

“ _Are_ you okay, bud?” he asked, hands folding in his lap.

Peter tilted his chin up, blinking in Tony’s direction, then looked straight up at the ceiling when met with that look of unwavering _something_.

Like love, but more.

A lot more.

It was a concept he once thought belonged solely to May and Ben, and it always made his head swim to remember how much his circle, his _world_ , had expanded.

Shifting to lay lengthwise on the bed, he leant backwards until his head found Tony’s lap. Calloused hands went into his hair and started carding through, pushing away curly bangs and letting them fall back into place.

Peter’s shoulders did the talking for him, a short little shrug that said “I don’t know what’s wrong,” because most of the time he truly didn’t. Especially now, with some tiny part of his brain feeling fifteen again, younger and just as dumb and heaving the weight of the world on his skinny shoulders.

“You remembering to take your meds?” Tony asked.

Peter nodded, closing his eyes and letting himself fall into the healing touches against his scalp.

“Still seeing your counselor when you can?”

“Mhm.”

“You nodding off on me?”

“Probably.”

Tony hummed a laugh, then went into a ponderous silence. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter than before.

“Was this an out of nowhere kinda night?”

Peter glanced up at him, exhaling long and slow.

“I don’t think so. But, um… it was a date-time-place night.”

“Ah,” Tony breathed, still carrying an easy nonchalance that Peter knew was meant for him. “Never an easy time, huh?”

“Nope.”

And while it still felt weird sometimes, hearing any amount of words put to it, he was okay. Nobody would ever completely understand, but as long as he had these moments to fall back on, everything would be fine.

Tony found a knot above his ear and started working through it, each press like a shock to Peter’s brain, or an itch being scratched. Slowly, steadily, bit by bit, his room wasn’t threatening to unravel at the seams once more.

It fell completely still and silent, and somewhere among the passage of time, Peter fumbled one hand up to grip tight at Tony’s free one.

Frustration had ebbed away. Now he felt cozy, lazy, and below that, a little guilty.

“I’m…” he started, then trailed off.

A curious, encouraging thumb was swept above his eyebrow.

“You’re…?”

“Well… I was gonna say I’m sorry for making you come out here. But then I figured you’d just tell me there’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Because there isn’t, bud.”

“See?”

Tony’s small sigh was exasperated but not unkind.

“Peter, I _wanted_ to come. Same as always.”

“I know that. I just… I wish you didn’t have to. I wish I—that I knew how to help myself, ya know?”

One of Peter’s cheeks was cupped fully, firmly, upside down with Tony’s fingers brushing his jaw. A warm, brown gaze angled down to make gentle eye contact.

“I understand that. But, buddy… the only thing you __have__ to know is when something doesn’t feel okay. And you’ve already got that down, so… alright, pop quiz question, what would the next step be?”

Peter tilted his head, feigning deep thought.

“Crying into my pillow?”

“Mm, before that. Preferably.”

He twisted his mouth to the side and heaved a breath through his nose, closing his eyes for a second.

“Telling someone I trust.”

“Bingo,” Tony answered quietly, nodding. “Bonus points lost for being a smart aleck, though.”

“Eh, can’t win ‘em all.”

“Shush, serious talk time.”

There was a bit of shifting, where Tony straightened himself further against the wall. Peter grimaced at the sounds of cracking vertebrae, prompting him to stretch his free arm above his head and grab a pillow. Tony took the offer with a gentle “thanks, kiddo,” situating it behind his back and then immediately refocusing on making Peter’s hair more disheveled than it already was.

“Now, for the record,” he started, smiling warmly, “I know I can be this… separate case. Where I get pushy and stubborn and clearly willing to break and enter if the cause is just, so… if that’s not what you need then I will happily adjust. Tell me you’d rather see May right now and it shall be done.”

That got Peter’s lips twitching upwards. Sometimes it felt like he’d be forever marveling at this post-Snap Tony, who would casually say things he never did Before, with an added dose of mastered patience.

“But, Healthy Coping Mechanisms 101… if it isn’t one of us you ask for help—or anybody else going down the list, for that matter—then it should still be somebody.”

He rubbed over Peter’s temple, waiting for eye contact and humming pleasantly when he got it.

“Easier said than done, I know. But you could go to one of those friends you’re always talking about, from your clubs. Some of them live in this hall, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, so there you go. No need to explain in detail what’s going on, either. Just… do what you did that first time you asked me for help, remember? Walk up, grab their hand—”

He lifted the hand wrapped tightly around Peter’s, waving it a bit for emphasis.

“—and whoever this person might be, you ask them to stay with you until you feel okay. You’re allowed to do that. You have every right to ask for it.”

Peter swallowed thickly, eyes glancing at where his thumb pressed firmly enough into the swell of Tony’s flesh hand that it left a pale crescent where blood couldn’t reach. When he tried to loosen his own grip, a sense of insecurity flickering into his heart, Tony squeezed all the more tight.

It made a pinch appear between his eyebrows.

His mouth working slowly, he mumbled, “But if it’s… if it’s early in the morning, and…”

Tony shook his head immediately.

“Every right, Pete. And if they get upset with you, or shut you down, then that’s everything to do with them and nothing to do with you. If they love you, they’ll at least _want_ to help.”

Peter blinked, hard, and gave a weak chuckle.

“I don’t think it’s always as plain and simple as that.”

“Oh, but it is. And you already know it.”

And yes, he did. Tony smoothed out the lines between his eyebrows with a gentle thumb, and he knew down in his bones that he did. The application of the information might prove a challenge, but at least he had that much.

Outside, the lights of the parking lot still cast long streaks. Peter’s walls hadn’t stopped being awash in that glow, and when he was done staring thoughtfully at Tony, he brought his gaze back up at the colors.

No stretch around it. No morph. He lifted his free hand, waggled his fingers to see the way his shadow moved in perfect sync.

Grinning, he fixed his father-figure with an earnest gaze and said, “Thank you.”

Tony beamed right back.

“Love ya, buddy. Now, why don’t we try to get some shut-eye before I drag you out for a late breakfast?”

Peter nodded vigorously.

“God, yes please. I’m so tired of campus food.”

He pushed himself up again to reach for the chaotic blanket pile at the foot of his bed, grabbing some sheets and tossing them backwards at Tony’s chest. When they were both practically swimming in warmth, Peter laid his head right back down on Tony’s lap, turning onto his side so he pressed into the man’s stomach.

“Hey, Tony?” he spoke against that familiar, motor-oil scented sweatshirt. The ministrations had started back up in his curls within a split-second, and he knew with a flash of gratitude that it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep.

“Yeah, bud?”

“We’re both gonna use the lobby doors when we leave.”

Tony, sounding pretty drowsy himself, chuckled.

“Sure thing, spoilsport.”

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I write Peter in college, I can't help but imagine my campus. So basically, Tony was breaking into my dorm room, which is whack but also sorely needed soul food :')
> 
> I hope all of you are staying safe while this year progresses. As always, thank you for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting!!
> 
> <3000


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